A Learning Framework for Knowledge Building and Collective Wisdom Advancement in Virtual Learning Communities

This study represents an effort to construct a learning framework for knowledge building and collective wisdom advancement in a virtual learning community (VLC) from the perspectives of system wholeness, intelligence wholeness and dynamics, learning models, and knowledge management. It also tries to construct the zone of proximal development (ZPD) of VLCs based on the combination of Vygotsky’s theory of zone of proximal development and the trajectories of knowledge building. The aim of a VLC built on the theories of constructivism, situated learning, and knowledge building, etc., is to apply individual intelligence to online learning, bring the advantages of collaborative learning and collective wisdom into play, solve difficult problems in independent learning, and lead to the integration and sublimation of collective wisdom through long-term individual interactions, collaborative learning and knowledge building.